Former Site of the Port Authority of Tanggu New Port

Former Site of the Port Authority of Tanggu New Port

Former Site of the Port Authority of Tanggu New Port

Era: Modern

Address: No. 20 Banyi Street, Tanggu District, Tianjin

Category: Important Modern Historical Sites and Representative Buildings

After the “July 7th Incident,” Japanese imperialism, driven by the needs of its war of aggression, urgently sought to transport strategic resources such as coal, salt, other minerals, cotton, and grain looted from North China to Japan. At the same time, it needed to ship war supplies and industrial goods produced domestically to China for military invasion and economic exploitation. As a result, the existing water depth and handling capacity of the ports in Tianjin and Tanggu could no longer meet these demands. In April 1939, Japanese imperialism selected Tanggu as the site for constructing a new seaport. The Port Authority of Tanggu New Port was built during this period and served as the administrative center for Japanese imperial forces at the new port.

The main entrance of the Former Site of the Port Authority of Tanggu New Port faces west. The structure is approximately 135 meters long from east to west and about 100 meters wide from north to south. It features a brick-and-wood construction, a double-sloped gable roof, a gray roof with red walls, and a single-story building complex laid out along a central axis. The main building located on the central axis divides the entire complex into two enclosed courtyards, north and south. Internal corridors connect the entire building complex, which consists of over 60 rooms of various sizes. The original wooden doors and windows on the exterior walls have been replaced with PVC ones, but the doors and windows in the corridors and rooms remain the original wooden ones. Most of the wooden wainscoting inside the rooms is also original, though the floors and ceilings have been updated with modern materials, and the interior height has been reduced. Each room originally had “cat holes” near the ground level on the outer walls facing the street or courtyard, used for ventilating the space beneath the wooden flooring. These are no longer visible due to the raised floor level.

The Former Site of the Port Authority of Tanggu New Port is the only relatively well-preserved historical building of commemorative significance remaining in the Tianjin Port area. Its exterior and internal structure have largely retained their original appearance.

The Former Site of the Port Authority of Tanggu New Port stands as a historical testament to the large-scale invasion, occupation, and plundering carried out by Japanese imperialism after the “July 7th Incident.” The Japanese used the newly built seaport in Tanggu to transport vast amounts of looted resources from China to the Japanese mainland. At the same time, they shipped numerous war supplies and industrial products from Japan through this port to various parts of China. The Japanese established a “labor camp” in the New Port area, where Chinese people captured across the country were gathered before being transported via Tanggu New Port to Japan to serve as forced labor. Many perished in the labor camps and were left unburied, leading to the formation of a horrifying “mass grave” in the New Port area. As the administrative body of Japanese imperialism at Tanggu New Port, the Port Authority was directly and inextricably linked to these events.

The Former Site of the Port Authority of Tanggu New Port provides valuable physical evidence for the study of history and the promotion of patriotic education today.

Further Reading:

· Fourth Batch of Tianjin Municipal Cultural Heritage Protection Units